Thursday, May 31, 2012

Write The Caption

Bangbus soundtrack, take 1!


The best two captions I've thought of are:

1. As if I don't get stared at enough...
2. The 2nd worst thing that blew through Joplin, MO in the last year.

We're starting a Wizardwrock band called "Hagrid's Homies" and our first single will be "Dobby Ain't Your Nigger"

The best title for this picture will be written in.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Tagged

 Old sign that reminds me of that optimist saying, "Keep your eye on the dough, not on the hole."
 Midwest style tagging.

He had the whole van to tag and I guess some remnant of respect made him choose the spare gas jug. I have to erase it or else others will claim their own territory.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Parting Words

The good ship Oggy is about to depart for unknown shores. A homeless street musician asked me for a ride to Austin, Texas and that sounded like as good of a plan as any. "I have no money but I sing for food," he said. "Let's go," I responded. Then he said, "Or Eugene, Oregon..." And I said, "Hush. The wind will lead us."
Oggy in the beatnik cafe

The words of Lyndon Johnson ring in my ear, "Is the world gone? We say 'Farewell' Is a new world coming? We welcome it - and we will bend it to the hopes of man."

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Gray Enemy

Don't worry about us!

What they don't tell you about Koala bears at the zoo is that their sexual habits often lead to chlamydia and blinding conjunctivitis. Wildlife vets capture and treat the bear but in their absence another bear has claimed dominance in the forest and the returning bear has to live in someone's back yard. I can relate.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The More Things Change...

I'm getting old and slow or maybe I don't care as much because it took me all day of watching Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do movies and weed whacking the sidewalk to come up with something to write about. No, I'm not going to bore you with how the Koala bear is endangered in Queensland, Australia because their gum trees are becoming suburbs for growing numbers of electrical engineers. I'll keep it simple...yes, the internet is rotting the brains of children. Twitter et all is changing the way kids think and communicate and it's not an improvement but it's an advance. Maybe that's not a simple concept but I'm sticking to it.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Conspiracy

Note to Oggy: don't get hooked into the Doomsday, 9/11 Truther cults on youtube. There is officially so much complete crap on there that I can't take it. People really take a lot of time editing these videos together that make the JFK assassination conspiracy look like an episode of "Who delivered my mail?" The video that made me shake my head and declare there is no hope was titled, "Real reason NASA bombed the moon." Something about how that title is constructed was so perfectly insane that it broke my spirit. I am lonely and sad. Don't ask me why NASA bombed the moon because I didn't watch it. All the narrators seem to be British or Australian...

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Hanging Tree

One badly made step

Vermont Bans Hydraulic Fracturing

When CBS runs an examination of climate change then you know it's serious. I wonder if everyone isn't being alarmist and exaggerating the problem but the evidence is strong in favor of trouble on the horizon. It seems Capitalism is not actually a way to live, but it's a good way to develop a civilization infrastructure. Namely, to borrow borrow borrow, build build build and pray pray pray. It's kind of ingenious because it does work to create infrastructure that's like a maze of wires and pipes more complicated than the brain. And it does it without actually paying for any of it. AND there is always some left over to build battleships that will never be used except to intimidate. It's an economic slight of hand, not necessarily a Ponzi scheme and it has worked up til now. (polite applause) But, the consequences have been immediate. The Kickapoo lived for 6000 years near the river and hardly changed a twig. Capitalists will not get away with 300 years of resource intensive living. Not only are the resources going to be depleted, but the global effects of reckless consumption are destroying towns 12000 miles away. That's impressive and tragic.

Overall Crappy

No way to make these overalls cool

Friday, May 18, 2012

Rocket Science

I had to reinvent math to get the dimensions right.
This is as close to the moon as I will ever get. Carving through a 2x4 with a saw so dull that I'm trying to melt the wood and so old it was made in America. I'm trying to build a box to stand on when I hang myself but if any of the end cuts are crooked then it will all wobble.

Day At The Zoo

Some Kind of Malayan Bear

Mother Lion and Cub
 Adult male lions try to kill any foreign male cubs and the mother goes from sleeping to kill or be killed in three seconds. Pure instinct.
  Jason and the Argonauts hunted this animal for the hide. A handsome and huge goat.
The fabled golden fleeced Takin from Tibet

Peacock filling up on M&Ms

A hippo can hold its breath for 5 minutes!

Baby Prairie Dog! Cute!
 Thanks to all you Budweiser beer drinkers for making this free St. Louis zoo possible.
"Oh, I ate too much custard!"

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Fakebook IPO

A momentous event is about to happen, namely a social network is going to be publicly traded stock. Remember that close-knit gang of kids you hung out with in Junior High School? That's what just went on the auction block. Unfettered access to their trends and habits is valuable to manufacturers of acne cream and skinny jeans and that's what Fakebook provides. As one analyst said, "It created a better way to track social interests" which translates into: it created a better way to manipulate social interests. All the gossip, purchases, event attendance, loyalties and alliances add up to specific markets that manufacturers can target and Fakebook allows you to feed yourself to the lions via ego maniacal gossip. Narcissism is going for $38 a share.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Custard Reviews from Three Locations in Saint Louis

As part of my plan to get Diabetes in the next few years I am throwing as much frozen custard in my mouth as I can. I will settle for ice cream shakes but custard is my weakness. I've now had custard at three local locations and feel I can review them all at once and in reverse order of deliciousness.

Leaves of Change

Can you identify the tree that has this leaf? The defining feature is the central vein that terminates at the top notch. There's only one tree that produces this kind of leaf.

Mini Altar

Here's another pyramid that was real important when it was built.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Nothing Changes

I can't make this comparison any more clear. Yes, most people will claim the Goldman Sachs building on the left "is important". But don't you think the Pharaoh's said the same thing about their pyramid? It's partly frustration at living in a digital age that is perplexing and reliant on the dead bodies of plants and microorganisms, beautiful parks that became coal and oil that we burn to propel our sagging bodies around on mini quests for ice cream and wolves. And part of this world is hedge fund and multinational bulge bracket investment banking and all those other "important" institutions that grain farmers and Inuits build with their carved bricks. But the snake oil salesmen have gotten smarter. Now they don't sell you snake oil. They take your money and promise you snake oil profits at some later date. And then they promise someone else that snake oil sales will plummet so they hedge their investments and take a commission on either a loss or a gain. The snake oil salesman doesn't care either way.

Monday, May 14, 2012

No apology

"Anyone who goes openly on a journey into the interior, who withdraws from the ceaseless agitation of everyday life and pursues the kind of training -- satipathhana, yoga, Jesus Prayer, or something similar -- without which genuine self-knowledge cannot be obtained, is accused of selfishness and of turning his back on his social duties. Meanwhile, world crises multiply and everybody deplores the shortage, or even total lack, of "wise" men or women, unselfish leaders, trustworthy counselors, etc."
-- E.F. Schumacher

There is a treasure to be found in the heart hidden from view, solace and informed. Wisdom flies from the beer bottle like fruit flies out of a bag of moldy bananas but in the land of swine the one eyed pig is king. When drug addiction is the initiation into normalcy then the outcast is sober and reviled. In a neighborhood of heroin junkies, the gypsy with the bongo drums is the outsider. The clouds of conformity drench the parched land with tears while the elk nurse their young in burned out hollows.

Lotus Flower

"Yoga is the control of the ideas in the mind," said the bearded Abraham squatting before the clay pot that represented Oggy's ignorance and the broken wine jug that represented Oggy's tempted flesh and the honeysuckle blossom that represented a lotus blossom that represented Oggy's potential for enlightenment. "Yoga is another variation of Vipassana, or clarity of vision, focus, control. Oggy? What sayeth thee?"

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Perplexing II

"Everything can be seen directly except the eye through which we see. Every thought can be scrutinized directly except the thought by which we scrutinize. A special effort, an effort of self-awareness is needed: that almost impossible feat of thought recoiling upon itself-almost impossible but not quite" E.F. Schumacher

I've gathered more evidence that suggests I belong in a Trappist Monastery where I can recite the Jesus Prayer through the coming environmental apocalypse, the skin being singed off my nose by radioactive tomatoes and the blistering rays of collective hate-speech comments on CNN.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Hypocrisy

There's no need to listen to this rant because I'm a hypocrite who lives in a van while espousing environmental sensitivity. The only way to embrace my beliefs completely would be to move to the mountains and live on a sustance farm while the 313 million Americans obliterate the environment. Defending myself is not allowed in the definition of most couch potatoes parroting the beliefs of Rush Limbaugh. I must die meekly and silently or else shut up. It's a nifty bit of ugly double standards set up to allow everyone guilt free access to the remote controls that build the plaque on their arteries. Oggy should die like the Kickapoo who signed treaties and then curled up with blankets infected with smallpox. "If they were real Indians, they would've hid in the river using bamboo to breath." I guess is the conclusion. And Oggy must sit down on the boarwalk and preach to passerbys with messages written in biodegradable chalk so everyone can ignore him...or else he is a hypocrite and can be completely ignored...in principle rather than merely ignored by habit. Yeah, I figured this all out on my own because I'm pretty slow and I need painters and muscle men to point out philosophical trickery to me. But eventually I catch up.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

New Drug Record Set

A new record has been set for the shortest elapsed time between a new medication being approved and sold to the public and a class action lawsuit involving that drug.

The newly approved pain medication Relievaplax was approved for prescription in January of 2012 and today has been named as responsible for dozens of deaths across the Nation. The new record of 4 months 3 days breaks the old record set in 2010 by the breast cancer treatment tablet Uroflex, which was determined to cause birth defects 14 months after it was approved for human consumption.

Law schools across the country are fast tracking class action lawsuit students to meet the increasing demand of class action lawsuits.

"As soon as we graduate one class, another ten drugs claim a few thousand more victims," said Yale Law School Dead, Tom Fibbins. "We expect every drug approved for use will be responsbile for deaths. Our only fear is that the rain forest will be obliterated so soon that no ingredients will be available to mix into deadly concoctions."

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

How Much Do I Owe?

Saw a PBS interview that estimated that every child born today already owes 1 million dollars toward the deficit. Thanks Enron! I'm really curious how this is going to all play out. The whole house of cards will crumble but people will still be alive so something has to follow. We're really playing with monopoly money and lately I've been musing that the same scenario that eradicated the American Indian is taking place again. Land is all important. There is no record of the flim flam that happens to allow small groups of people to own land. All that matters is who owns it and who defends it. So, after the collapse the only thing that will matter are the people who claim to be the owners of land (banks)...and the people they employ to defend that claim (thugs). It's been the  model of Feudal England and Colonial America. But it has evolved into deeds and broken treaties and exploding loans. Hell, all the evidence points to a ruling that most of America was seized illegally from the Indians. AND IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Something That I Wish I Didn't Know


This has been a long time coming. I'm trying to present my disdain for humanity in one pretty package. But that means I need to have topical music and current events at my disposal and then make a single skit that entertains while also venting some of my distate. Not as easy as it sounds. Of course parodies aren't original and there are already parodies of this particular song but I think mine is pretty good since it uses the original title slightly transformed in wording and usage. I give it to the world.






Something That I Wish I Didn't Know
Music by Gotye (Am, G for the verse, then Am, G, F, G, from the first chorus on)
Lyrics by Oggy

Most the time I wish I didn't know what was happening.
the news is so gruesome that I want to puke.
Then I turn the Internet on
And suddenly my serenity's gone.
MSNBC and CNN I hate you...

If I read another story about Global Warming I'm gonna die.
The Economic Collapse doesn't cheer me up.
What's this, another family dead?
That missing girl they just found her head.
What the hell is wrong, and why can't I turn away.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Headlines I Wish I didn't Read

Dolphins die after being poisoned with a heroin substitute most certainly dropped into their pool by drug dealers at a rave that rented the area around the dolphin pool. Pray that God hates dolphins.

McDonalds worker is pimped out as hooker. Gives new meaning to the term "Happy Meal". Complained that her bowels were injured and she "Vomited after performing felatio." Then she married her pimp.

Korean health drug is actually made of dried dead babies.

These are all stories I'm trying to work into a song that sums up my disdain for people. I'm going to have to steal a melody from some song. Ah, maybe that Gotye tune. It's easy and topical. Let me get to work on that.

Childhood Revisited

I try to avoid any mention of professional sports because it's all a racket to sell after shave lotion. When I was a teenager I played baseball and thought I had the talent to make money. I was the only one who thought that was true. I also loved the Red Sox despite their long love affair with 4th place. But in 1986 I thought all the pieces had come together for an ultimate victory. This is expanded upon in my book, Memorabilia, soon to be released in digital format, for download to your e book reader but it is currently available for free.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Race to the Bottom

Capitalism merely forces wage slaves to compete for who can accept the least amount of money for the most work. Basically, who can survive on the least amount of food? That's the natural progression of capitalism and we made it. Congratulations! 6 Billion people underbidding each other for a can of dented Alpo. Awesome! Enjoy your iPod!

The Chinese, as God intended them to be.


Bag Lady Hat


This hat had big dreams at the start like children born of average parents and ended up being reconstructed until I ran out of yarn and feeling resentment at the lack of love and respect.
"Fine. BE defiant. See where that gets you," I lectured.


Then I patched it together with whatever yarn was laying around and added some vintage buttons that I once traded some plaid pants for and some hat bangles from a 1965 pill box hat design.* It's $3 worth of Goodwill baby blanket wool yarn and $6 worth of some kind of acrylic/wool/nylon that I found and thought would look nice but really was hard to work with and when I crocheted it wrong was a nightmare to untangle.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Evolving Worldview

It isn't that I can't be convinced, but no one knows how to frame an argument so that I change my mind. It's a matter of strategy with me and most generic arguments don't work because they sound like tired bible thumpers trying to draft another one onto the team. You'll have to do better than that if you want me to alter my worldview. PBS has the right approach, which is to introduce a subject in a practical light and spend years developing their thesis and then finding experts who can corroborate the evidence. I need audio-visual props and at least one reference to Hermann Hesse. In fact, if you haven't read every book by Hermann Hesse then we don't even speak the same language. Don't expect to get through my defenses without major effort. So, don't blame me for being stubborn when you're basically being lazy. If you think you'll change my mind with something you read in the Boston Globe this morning then save yourself the effort and go back to bed.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Faces From The Past

Oggy as a young pup
 My attempts to get a national park guide job failed because my claims of 4 years experience as a naturalist and field guide were not accepted (right, I'm hardly qualified to lead tour groups through a cave!) and I never included my college transcripts of my geology classes. So, I had to hunt down my transcripts and in the process came upon these two artifacts from an era that is gone. Here is an infant - and the handwriting of my grandfather indicates it is baby Oggy, but wait...

Pessimism

"I do believe the tree of liberty was planted quite crooked and watered too often with the blood of innocents to ever thrive on morality alone. The day I’m wrong is the day everyone stops buying lottery tickets and donates the $1 to their schools."

--Pessimist named Oggy who once quoted John Lennon but bought 5 lottery tickets today.

Spam Theory




I'm trying to figure out the strategy of the spam bots. What I think is that there are computers that work nonstop gathering blog information and then setting up fake links to a blog on their own enclosed server. Then the computer pretends to click on the link to send a fake statistic to my blog record saying there is this website that is sending tons of traffic to your site. Well, no. There is no website sending traffic to my site. There is a website that has pretended to send traffic to my site and probably millions of other sites and none of it has to do with CNN or anything relevant. It's all flim flam Ukrainian fraud. Bullshit.

Fireside Chat With Oggy


I know I'm losing my touch when my lectures are boring to me. I'm out of my element. Oh, I wish I were in the Mexican desert fighting off scorpions and fixing the transmission with a ceral box. Now that would be good video. But I have to show myself in good and bad lights. This isn't a greatest hits only cd. You get the B sides and the cast off essays. True, I have turned several essays into drafts to spare you from my insanity and hoarded resentments but mostly I publish unedited stuff with some polished gems.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Picture Window

Here's a repurposing of an old window frame. I wonder if there isn't a cross hatch missing because even in 1920 they didn't make windows that look like prison bars. A nice vintage nautical map would look cool under this window. The plan is to do a drum circle at every Mexican town where someone has been killed in the drug war so I study this map through an old window. I insisted the map be stapled to the outside of the window for realism. Sometimes I look at the map through binoculars while dressed in a serape. I'm losing my mind.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Etta

I've been listening to Etta James to soothe my inflamed prostate lately. It doesn't help but I am impressed with the presence this woman exudes on her recordings. I actually have the sheet music for Saint Louis Blues in a songbook by Bob Wills and I don't think any notation of Db13 or eb7/C can approximate her inflection, timing and dynamics. No, that's called "Soul" and you don't write it down on paper.

Mother's Milk Morphine

"As East Tennessee Children's Hospital continues to treat these defenseless drug-dependent babies and chip away at the underlying causes of drug abuse through education and proper medical care, Buchheit admits that the future for these newborns with NAS is uncertain."

May Day

The Problem with a general worker's strike is the number of scabs has increased to 5 billion. So, organization is the key to shutting down the exploitation of workers. Everyone in the world has to be on board but not even everyone in Lower Manhattan is on board. So it's fucked. But I like the idea and it will go down with the general strikes the food not bombs and IWW folks had in Santa Cruz. You all remember those shutting down international trade right?
But I'm all for not working on Tuesday. Perfect.
Here's a showdown between opposing sides that made me laugh....
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.